PC Keyboard Player - To Play

Screen Shot

PC Keyboard Player - To Play

Various options that affect the pitches and so on as played from the PC keyboard.

Single part for P.c. Keyboard

Play a single part for the entire PC keyboard

Each keyboard row plays a separate part

Lets each row play any pan position, controllers, octave shift etc...

Just set the parts up as you want in the various windows e.g. to stereo pan the first row to the left and second row to the right, set them to play parts 1 and 2 say and pan those parts appropriately in the pan window.

Similarly you can assign interval or octave shifts (using Parts window), different scales and tunings (Scales for Parts window), instruments, controllers etc independently to each row of the keyboard by this technique

Part to play

If this shows Highl. Part it plays whichever part is highlighted in Parts window...

Or the first part highlighted if it is a multiple selection.

To set this to the highlighted part, enter 0 for the part number or adjust the number downwards below 1 using the up / down control

Part for each row , top row first

Set which instruments play in the Tune Smithy parts, and the volumes for parts etc...

You can set up any part with an instrument, volume, controllers and other parameters here. You can also set a different tuning for each part too using the Scales for Parts window.

This part then can be used in many places in Tune Smithy using the part number, and is the equivalent of a Midi Out channel in FTS. You can't use Midi channels directly as the notes for a single part often have to be relayed to many different channels for retuning purposes.

Set range of notes to play for each part, && what to do with out of range notes

Modulate each row by (play along only)

How much to modulate each row from the previous one...

Up to three values expected here, but you can also enter just a single value as the last one gets repeated as needed.

Example, 6/5 to modulate each row by a minor third above the previous one.

You can enter several values.

Example

6/5 5/4 6/5

second row is a minor third above the first one, third row a major third higher so an octave above the first one, and fourth row is a minor third above the third row

4/1 1/2 4/1

second row is two octaves above the first.

Third row is an octave below the second (so an octave above the first)

Fourth row is two octaves above the third (so three octaves above the first.

This way of showing it is most useful for lattice type scales, which is why it is done this way.

If you want to just shift the parts for the keyboard up / down by fixed intervals, an easier way is to apply octave shifts to the parts in the Parts window.

Vary vols by mouse pos. on key

This lets you change the volume of the note by positioning the mouse high or low on the key in the picture

Volumes by keyboard row

Each row plays the same notes, with the volume only varying

Set a volume for each row so you can play, e.g. a loud ff using top row, and a quiet pp in last row.

Make lattice or Janko (changes main scale)

This is a type of layout in which triangles of keys play chords...

The especially interesting thing here is that the same type of chord has the same fingering wherever it is on the keyboard.

The PC keyboard is close to hexagonal in layout, so it works pretty well with these schemes. You set one interval for the step from each key to the next in the same row and another for the diagonal setp down and to the right.

Hor. and Diag. intervals

Some often used interval steps for this type of lattice arrangement keyboard

3/2 horizontally and 6/5 diagonally to right - this is a pattern of major and minor chords, with the major chord triangle pointing upwards and the minor ones pointing downwards.

The others with pure ratios also make various pure triads for upward and downing pointing triangles.

The 2//17 and 3//17 etc use an equal temperament notation where 2//17 is two steps of seventeen equal. These are usually arrangements with a whole tone one way and a semitone the other way. This means you can play a major scale using a staggered type pattern, for instance one may play three notes along any row then down to the appropriate note on the next row to continue, then finally down to the last note for the octave. The interesting thing about these patterns is that you can transpose very easily to any of the keys of e.g. 17 equal while still using the same fingering, and just shift your fingers to right or left or up / down as desired.

So you only need to learn the one fingering for any scale pattern to play it in any key.

Make Preset

Make the preset selected in the drop list...

The preset also gets made automatically when you change the selection. Use this as a slightly quicker way to recover it if you change something.

Make Preset

Presets for the PC keyboard player to show some of the options you can use...

Japanese Koto scale played from consecutive keys, first two rows play koto, last two shakuhachi

Koto + shakuhachi is a traditional Japanese combination of instruments. The koto, a plucked zither like instrument nicely sets off the shakuhachi, an end blown flute, both played with great virtuosity.

You play the koto using the top two rows of the PC keyboard and the shakuhachi plays the same notes using the bottom two rows.

You can choose some of the traditional Japanese koto modes from the Arpeggios drop list in the main menu.

You will notice that some of the notes change as you play. This is because traditionally, different notes are played,depending on whether you play an ascending or a descending passage, rather like the Western melodic minor scale.

HOW THIS PRESET IS CONFIGURED

In
PC Keyboard Player - To Play (Ctrl + 24) window, select Each keyboard row plays a separate part. Then enter the numbers for the parts to play for each row - this preset sets it to 1 1 2 2 which means the first two rows play the first part and the second two rows play the second part.

What to show on music keyboard pictures - note names, intervals etc...

Choose what to show on pictures of the music keyboard when you play notes. Also various other display options such as text size, width in octaves and so on.

This is for any of the windows that have a picture of the music keyboard - the main window Music Keyboard player, multi-line player, and the Scale, Arpeggio and Seed edit windows.

If you select the Beating Partials option - note that this will show the Beats window whenever you play a chord.

These music keyboard pictures - though very similar looking to a conventional music keyboard, actually have the white keys of two sizes - the D, G and A keys are a little broader than the others. This is so that the width of the key can correspond exactly to the pitch range that it spans.

The stretchy keyboard options let you show the normal music keyboard and below it, another version which is stretched or compressed to show the notes to press on your Midi keyboard to get the desired pitches. This can be useful when you play notes from a music keyboard in FTS or use FTS for composition retuning via Midi In.

Quantise playing to fractal tune or metronome

When selected, notes from midi on or PC keyboard get played on next beat...

So your playing then will always be exactly in time with the metronome - but to do that you have to play every beat slightly ahead of the metronome as it can only delay the notes you play, and not anticipate them.

Show Lambdoma notes as you play, & play them using mouse or PC Keyboard...

Tips:

You can use the arrow keys to move a sustained chord around after you have played it.

Show the Bs | Notes Played window to see your notes in a score like form as dots on staffs.

Click on the music keyboard icons - to show the notes on a music keyboard as you play. You can also play the notes by clicking on the music keyboard picture.

The menu under the Tune Smithy icon at top left of the Lambdoma Keyboard picture has a quick link to the options for this keyboard.

Less <<

Shows this window with either less space, less options, or alternative layout

Left

Various options that affect the notes you hear when you play the tunes from the PC keyboard.

Help = F1

Click for help for this window. Or F1. Other opts: Shift , Alt, Ctrl + click...

F1 or click shows the help for the current window in your web browser.

Some windows may have no help yet in which case the help icon is shown crossed out with a red line.

Shift + F1 or Shift + Click brings up the tool tips extra help window (this window) to show any extra help for a tool tip.

You can tell if a tool tip has extra help if it ends ... like this one.

Ctrl + F1 or Ctrl + click takes you to the list of keyboard shortcuts for Tune Smithy.

Alt + F1 or Alt + click (alternatively Caps lock physically held down + F1 or Click) takes you to the on-line page at the robertinventor.com web site about the current main window task - which gives a short introduction to it for newbies to the program. If there is no on-line page specific to a task, takes you to the main tune smithy page on the web site.

Since the help for Tune Smithy is currently a bit out of date and needs to be redone completely for the new 3.0 release, then you may find the on-line page for some of the newer tasks particularly useful.